


Sleep now, under my skin

by AngelOnFire (Katherine3)



Series: Neil with DID [5]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:44:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18549106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine3/pseuds/AngelOnFire
Summary: Neil distracts Andrew by talking about his inner world.





	Sleep now, under my skin

**Author's Note:**

> Hello boys, girls and non-binary pals.  
> We start this story a little bit differently, as I have a trigger warning for you.  
> There's a description of Andrew's nightmare at the beggining and it's related to the abuse he experianced as a child. If this is something that might be triggering for you, you can just skip to the third "Andrew". There's also a description of a panic attack, but I tried to not make it very detailed.
> 
> Special thank you to Indrid of The Dormant System, to Jace and Cal and also to Nate, who've been my consultants for this story in one way or another. I really appreciate all your help.
> 
> Make sure to read the previous fics of the series to get a little background story!

Hot breath on his skin, a hand pinning his wrists to the mattress; his face is pressed against the pillow, he can barely breath. 

Andrew. 

He can feel tears running down his face, he wants to say ‘please, stop’, but can't get enough air into his lungs to be able to.

Andrew. 

He can feel a hand moving down his back. He's naked. He doesn't want to be naked. He doesn't want this hand on his body, doing whatever it wants while he can't do anything. He wants to scream. 

“Andrew!”

Andrew blinks when the bright light of the bedside lamp hits his eyes. It takes him a moment to realise where he is and what is going on. A nightmare. He had a nightmare. 

He's in the house in Columbia, in his room, with Neil standing next to the bed, looking down at him with worry. It doesn't look good on him. 

Andrew wants to say that he's fine, but that'd be a lie. No matter how hard he tries, he can't even his breath, he can't stop his hands from shaking. Usually he's much better at controlling his body and he hates it for not listening to him now.

“Do you… Do you want me to go sleep on the couch?” Neil asks. 

Andrew shakes his head. It seems that he's having a panic attack. He doesn't remember last time he had one and he doesn't want to go through it alone. 

Besides, it's Neil. Neil won't touch him. Neil won't get close. Neil respects his boundaries. He trusts Neil. 

The taller man slowly sits back down on the bed, Andrew can feel the mattress moving under his weight. He doesn't look up at Neil, but he can feel the other's eyes staring at him.

Oh, how pathetic he must look right now.

“Did I ever tell you about my inner world?” Neil asks. Andrew looks up at him with a frown and Neil continues, “it's a hotel.”

Andrew is able to scoff even when his breath is uneven and shallow. Seriously, Josten? A hotel?

“We all have our own rooms. Well, almost everyone. The gatekeeper sleeps on a sofa in the lobby. But he says that he likes it.”

So the gatekeeper is a he. That's probably as much information as Andrew'll get about the mysterious gatekeeper.

Andrew can tell Neil is talking to him in an attempt to calm him down. It does work a little, so the blond nods Neil’s way, to show him that he’s listening and the other should continue.

“Um, we all have something on our doors to show who the room belongs to. Stefan has a pride flag on his. The kids love playing with it. Chris has black door and a poster of Black Veil Brides on it. Sam’s door is entirely made of flowers. It always smells really nice. It’s right next to the littles’ room. They have all of their drawings taped to their door.”

Andrew kind of wishes he could see all of that. He wishes he could walk down the hallway, smell the flowers and see the drawings.

“Nathaniel drove a knife into his,” Neil says with a roll of his eyes, “such a daddy’s boy.”

Andrew wants to ask why the hell didn’t Neil tell him about Nathaniel before their meeting, but he doesn’t trust his voice yet. He trusts Neil, but he doesn’t want anyone to hear his voice shaking. It was already hard to let Neil stay and see him like this. Shaking and gasping for breath. Weak and pathetic.

“Alex doesn’t even have a door. Just a striped cloth hung in the doorway. He’s kinda weird. Abram says he appeared when I was in France. Was I trying to channel a stereotypical french guy to blend in? I hope not, that’d be kinda racist of me. Oh, and Abram, Abram’s actually a really big guy. Looks like the typical British football fan, bold and muscular. But then he does have a pretty nice beard which looks… interesting. But despite all of this, he’s a teddy bear, which I’m sure you know.”

Andrew frowns at that. He’s been dating Abram for a while now and he never asked what the guy looks like in the inner world. Maybe he should start taking a bit more interest in how things look inside Neil’s head.

“Now that I think of it, he looks more like a biker. Anyway, his door is just plain brown, he does like it when things are simple. Um, I guess those are all the people that you know. I’m not going to tell you about the others, if they’re not ready to meet you, then we should respect their privacy.”

Andrew nods in agreement. Neil told him once that he has 15 alters overall, but only a few accepted the fact that Neil stopped running and settled down, so some of them still don’t feel comfortable with fronting and meeting the Foxes. Even if one of them fronts because they get triggered, they try their best to pass as Neil. Apparently some are so good at it, that even Andrew isn’t able to notice.

Andrew watches as Neil starts to blink slowly, clearly having trouble with focusing. Andrew just waits, wondering who is planning to switch with Neil, but when Neil starts to blink fast again, a smile stretches on his face.

“Sorry, um, Kol was talking to me,” Neil explains, pointing vaguely at his own temple.

“Kol?” Andrew isn’t able to stop himself. Luckily, his voice is steady. His breath almost evened out and his hands aren’t shaking anymore. Neil’s method of distracting him with talking clearly worked.

“Yeah, he said that his door is so beautiful that I have to tell you about it. Well, he’s a painter. If you ever see me draw anything, you’ve met Kol. His door is… well, you know how you pour paint into water and it makes some colourful shapes and just moves around? Yeah, that’s Kol’s door. And yes, it’s constantly moving. When you walk through it, it feels as if you walk through a thin wall of water. Luckily, it doesn’t make you wet or colorful.”

Andrew hums as he tries to imagine that. It must be a really nice sight.

“It looks beautiful during the day,” Neil says, as if he’s reading Andrew’s thoughts, “when the light goes through the windows in the room and makes the paint glow, it’s mesmerizing.”

Andrew sits more comfortably on the bed, as he watches Neil talk.

“What’s on your door?”

Neil looks at him and then blushes. Andrew raises an eyebrow at him. Oh, it must be something very interesting.

“I’d rather not say.”

Andrew sighs in disappointment, but also understanding. He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his cheek against his knee as he looks towards his boyfriend.

“What else is in the hotel?” he asks, to change the subject.

“Oh, we have plenty of shared space,” Neil says, his smile returning. “There’s a kitchen. You’d hate it so much. It’s mostly in pink color, but it’s the kind of… dirty pink, I guess? But yeah, all the cabinets are pink. Alex and Sam spend the most time in there as they both love cooking. They always try to make something new and then convince the little ones to eat it, which is not easy.”

“Wait, Alex cooks?” Andrew asks, a little surprised. He’s never seen the man in the kitchen.

“Um, yeah, he’s actually really good at it. He and Sam bond over it. They always make some crazy meals together. Sam learned a lot from my mom, it’s really nice when she cooks one of her dishes.”

Andrew watches Neil’s eyes get a little foggy, probably thinking about his mom and her cooking. He gives him a bit, before he speaks again, not wanting Chris to make an appearance when they were having sort of a moment.

“What else?”

“There’s a playground for the littles, there’s a pool as one of the alters likes to swim, we have a storage cabinet with all of the cleaning supplies. It’s mostly used by one of the alters. We think he might have OCD or be a germaphobe or something. His passion is cleaning and putting things back onto their place. Maybe he’s just the type of guy who likes it when things are clean and in order, hard to say without professional diagnosis.”

Andrew didn’t expect to learn so much about the alters he’s never met before. But he is glad that Neil is sharing all of those things with him. He is pretty sure he saw the cleaning one once, as he walked into the bedroom to find Neil just rearranging his closet and cabinet and then he was unable to find anything in them.

“Back to the hotel, we have an amazing living room. There’s a huge flat screen on one of the walls, a fireplace, lots of chairs and sofas. There’s a piano, too. Kol likes to play on it. So does Alex, but he’s not that good. There’s a glass coffee table in the middle and a fancy-looking rug under it. And the windows are big, like, from the ceiling to the floors. Which are wooden. Floors, not the windows. And there are red curtains. And… um...”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re shit at describing things?” Andrew asks, softly raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, fuck you. I’m trying to share something with you here.” Neil scoffs, before getting back into bed, but still leaving a lot of space between himself and Andrew.

Andrew watches as his boyfriend turns his back on him and for a long time they just stay in silence, the older man watching the back of Neil's head and admiring his auburn curls. His hair is getting pretty shaggy, he should get a haircut soon.

“What color are the floors?” Andrew finally asks. He can tell Neil isn't sleeping. It takes a few seconds for Neil to let out a long sigh and turn his head towards Andrew. 

“Brown, obviously”

“Obviously,” Andrew parrots. Neil narrows his eyes, surely aware that Andrew is mocking him, but it seems that he decides to ignore it. 

“We have a garden,” Neil says, turning on his other side so now he's facing his boyfriend. 

“Do tell,” Andrew replies. Now that he's sure of his voice, he feels a weird need to talk. Maybe it's the tiredness after the nightmare. Maybe it's the fact he just realized how little he knows about Neil's inner world and all of his head mates. He's not sure what the reason is. 

“You'd think Sam is the one taking care of it, but it's actually M- someone else, “ Neil corrects himself in time, before he lets another name slip his mouth, “and Stefan.”

Andrew is a bit annoyed about the fact he doesn't know all of Neil's alters. He hates secrets and he hates not knowing. He is patient, of course, but every time he thinks how many of them he still hasn't officially met, he gets a little uneasy feeling in his gut. It's probably because he doesn't know what to expect of them and Andrew hates surprises. 

“The garden is full of flowers, fruit and vegetables. There's also a small square of grass where we can lay down and enjoy the sun. At the end is a forest. One of the alters lives there.”

Andrew can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that, “In the forest?”

Neil nods and then shrugs with one shoulder, “he likes it there.”

Andrew hums. He'd really like to meet this individual. The silence falls between them again and after a moment Andrew properly gets into bed, his head resting on his pillow as he's facing Neil. The other looks at him with tired eyes. 

“Go back to sleep,” Andrew tells him, before he reaches over and turns the bedside lamp off. 

“Don't you wanna hear more?” Comes a reply from the darkness, followed by the sound of yawning.

Andrew hums, “That depends. Do you have an exy court in that little head of yours, junkie?”

There's a small huff of laughter, before it gets muffled, Neil probably pressing his face into his pillow. 

“No,” Neil finally says.

“Then I can wait until some other time to hear the rest,” Andrew decides. He can hear shifting on the other side of the bed and then he feels hot breath on his face. Neil moved closer to him.

“Goodnight,” Neil whispers and Andrew can smell the faded minty scent of Neil's toothpaste. He is glad to smell that instead of whatever monstrosity escapes Neil's mouth in the mornings.

Andrew still moves back a little. On normal nights he'd welcome the closeness, but this isn't one of those nights. He doesn't want to feel a hot breath on his face, not in the darkness.

Andrew knows what Neil is doing, though. After his nightmare, sharing a breath is as close to a kiss as they could get. Andrew knows Neil will move away in a moment, so he stays calm. 

“Night,” Andrew replies, before turning his back on Neil. Shuffling again and the little warmth that was radiating from Neil's body is now gone, as each of them falls asleep on the far ends of the bed they share.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed. Your comments and kudos give me life.
> 
> If you have any questions about Neil's alters or his DID, or if you want to see a specific alter interact with a specific Fox, you can send me a message or an ask on my Tumblr: Kasiulenka133.tumblr.com
> 
> If someone with DID reads this and finds something offensive or inaccurate, please don't be mean to me. I did a lot of research, but I obviously don't know everything. You can inform me in the comments if I did something wrong and I'll try my best to fix it.


End file.
